The customer knows best?

Subject: The customer knows best?
From: "Hart, Geoff" <Geoff-H -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2003 08:33:37 -0500


Lyn Worthen reports: <<...the client has decided that there's just not room
on the Quick Start Card (1 sheet, front/back, sized to fit in a CD
jewel-case) to tell the users what they need to know to get started using
the product. Now they want a 3-5 page "User Guide" (by Thursday, of
course). But they only want me to tell the users -why- they would want to
use a feature, not -how- to use it (I'm supposed to direct them to the
online Help). The application (which I can't describe here per the terms of
the NDA) isn't complicated to use, but it is targeted toward a non-technical
audience.>>

But surely in this day and age the software is so intuitive that you don't
need how to explain how to use it? <g> If you're not actually providing a
printed manual, that actually sounds like a reasonable compromise. One of
the most difficult barriers many new users must overcome is knowing what
their software can actually do. A brief booklet can easily provide that
overview.

Once they know what's possible, the next step is to learn how, and this is
why (in my opinion) it's shortsighted to produce products without printed
manuals. I've seen a study that suggests many users don't know that online
help is available, others never learn how to use it if they do spot the Help
menu, and others still get fed up and never return to the Help (or having
encountered really bad help in the past, never bother trying yours). But
everyone's still comfortable with print--or at least less uncomfortable with
print than they are with Help. This suggests that at least one page of your
booklet should explain how to use the online help.

In my experience, this works quite well. (I persuaded our trainer to include
a lesson on online help in his workshops.) Since you won't have a trainer
handy, and your users are "non technical" (a vague term), adding a "how to
use the help" page will probably provide quite a bit of bang for your buck.

--Geoff Hart, geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
Forest Engineering Research Institute of Canada
580 boul. St-Jean
Pointe-Claire, Que., H9R 3J9 Canada

"Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the
earth's surface relative to other matter; second, telling other people to do
so. The first is unpleasant and ill-paid; the second is pleasant and highly
paid."--Bertrand Russell

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